10 Sudanese & South Sudanese Short Stories for the Solstice

There I was, cutting through a strange market crowd – not just people shopping for their salad greens, but beggars and butchers and thieves, prancers and Prophet-praisers and soft-sided soldiers, the newly-arrived and the just-retired, the flabby and the flimsy, sellers roaming and street kids groaning, god-damners, bus-waiters and white-robed traders, elegant and fumbling. And there in the midst, our elected representatives, chasing women with their eyes and handsand whole bodies, with those who couldn’t give chase keeping pace with an indiscrete andsensual attention, or lost in a daydream.

6. “A Handful of Dates,” by Tayeb Salih, translated by Denys Johnson-Davies

I must have been very young at the time. While I don’t remember exactly how old I was, I do remember that when people saw me with my grandfather they would pat me on the head and give my cheek a pinch – things they didn’t do to my grandfather. The strange thing was that I never used to go out with my father, rather it was my grandfather who would take me with him wherever he went, except for the mornings, when I would go to the mosque to learn the Koran. The mosque, the river, and the fields – these were the landmarks in our life. While most of the children of my age grumbled at having to go to the mosque to learn the Koran, I used to love it. The reason was, no doubt, that I was quick at learning by heart and the Sheik always asked me to stand up and recite the Chapter of the Merciful whenever we had visitors, who would pat me on my head and cheek just as people did when they saw me with my grandfather.

7. “Helmy Abu Regileh,” by Tarek Eltayeb, translated by Sally Gomaa

We all headed to Helmy’s house covered in sweat and dust.

8. “Isolation,” by Sabah Babiker Ibraheem Sanhouri, translated by Najlaa Othman and Max Shmookler

It’s hot, hot enough to suffocate. There is nothing except this table upon which I sleep, a rectangular hall with four doors and twelve windows. On each side a door. On the shorter sides, two windows, each with a door between them, and on the longer sides, two windows to the left of the door and two to the right.

9. “Conjunctions,” by Nagi Al-Badawi, translated by Max Shmookler and by Najlaa Eltom

Doves!

Doves flying on a horizon of signs and metaphors. I can never hear the word “doves,” nor think of it unexpectedly, without picturing them flying as if they were the horizon’s capricious whim, their movements vexing me every time I approached from a distance. Their exact number did not live long in my memory. I used to count the doves hovering in pairs, like married couples, over the playground that I cut across on my way home from school. I only felt the playground’s vastness when I walked through with empty pockets, having spent my last penny on sunflower seeds or ice cream and then hit the road in the company of my friends.

10. “A Condition,” by Adil al-Qassas, translated by Max Shmookler and by Najlaa Eltom

You’re certain that nothing will dissuade you now. Nothing. Not your neighbors’ invitation to the luncheon to celebrate their boys’ circumcision. Not the kind old lady’s pleading to help her write a letter to her faraway son who never visits. Not the laughter of your three-year-old boy (whose laughter—you would say—sounds like a gurgling stomach). Not the mischievous way he clung to the collar of your jallebeya when you saw him outside just a few moments ago with his mother (who was—as always—chomping away on a stick of gum) on their way to visit the neighbors. Nothing. Nothing will dissuade you.

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